This week the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the polls that they will use to determine which candidates will be invited to this fall’s presidential and vice presidential debates. To be invited, a candidate must reach at least 15 percent in the average of these five national polls conducted by these organizations: ABC-Washington Post, CBS-New York Times, CNN-Opinion Research Corporation, Fox News, and NBC-Wall Street Journal.
Right now, Libertarian Gary Johnson is just a bit below that 15 percent threshold: 8 percent in ABC, 12 percent in CBS, 9 percent in CNN, 12 percent in Fox News, and 10 percent in NBC.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein was and is supremely unlikely to reach that 15 percent threshold. But it does seem more than a little unfair that she’s not even included as an option in the CBS New York Times poll. She hasn’t been included so far in the Fox News poll, either, but their pollster says she’ll be added to the next poll. Unless that pollster adds her as an option, she’s got a zero weighing down her average that is entirely a result of the pollster’s decision, not a reflection of her (admittedly meager, 4-5 percent or so) support.
The glaring obstacle before Stein, and the possibility that Johnson might not be invited even if he’s consistently in the low teens, raise the question of why the television networks, candidates, and electorate as a whole still want the Commission to make the rules. There’s no commission managing and assigning primary debates, and they seem to work out reasonably well. Would the voting public be that much worse off if the candidates and networks negotiated everything among themselves?
Do We Still Need the Commission on Presidential Debates?